Living the Call. Michael Novak
Elias asked himself, “What is God calling me to do?” He has discovered a “passion for education, and, in particular, a passion for Catholic education.”
It sounds inspiring, but is it sustainable? If and when Elias settles down with a family, will they accept the kind of commitment he has made to St. Rose? The Church once had a large supply of free or cheap labor—nuns and priests. Today, 96 percent of Catholic-school teachers are laypeople. Like Elias, they typically work long hours for little pay. Elias doesn’t see this as a big problem though. He thinks there will always be people “willing to make some sacrifices for the greater good,” and there will always be young energetic people willing to heed the call. In his assessment, ACE and programs like it will be able to address the immediate needs of Catholic schools.
But he also foresees a need for a long-term plan. St. Rose has always worried about how it will stay open from one year to the next. The school is starting to raise money for an endowment. But Elias worries that Catholic education is not enough of a priority for some. “Catholic education definitely needs to take a front seat in anything that we do. And I think that if our Catholic schools are struggling, then our Church is struggling. Catholic schools are the way we bring people into the Church.”
CHAPTER 4
A Life of Service—Not Far from Home
Mary Baier
“Saponaro, what do you think?” That’s how Mary Baier (formerly Mary Saponaro) remembers the beginning of a conversation she had with her teenage girlfriends about the possibility of becoming a nun. “I said, ‘I think I could do everything but obedience.’” Thirty-odd years later, Mary, who is now the acting principal and president of Paterson Catholic Regional High School in Paterson, New Jersey, and the director of all of the area’s Catholic schools, has no regrets. “I don’t know if I could just blindly say okay without questioning. My personality is such that I challenge.”
It would be a cliché to say that Mary is one tough broad. But it wouldn’t be far from the truth either. Paterson has some tough neighborhoods. The majority of Mary’s students are from single-parent backgrounds, and 85 percent live at or below the poverty line. When she gave a speech on her first day, telling the students she was excited to be “a part of the Paterson Catholic family,” she was met with boos and cackles from the audience. Some of the kids later told her she had no right to make such a claim, and she would have to “prove” she was a part of that family. That experience only seemed to make her more determined to succeed.
In high school, she remembers a conversation with a nun who told her, “You can’t always challenge; you have to accept.” Mary responded, “I accept so much of my faith, but that’s because we’re talking about God and the Church.” “What makes you so different?” she asked the nun pointedly. Looking back, she says, “Ohhh, it got me in trouble.”
It’s hard to imagine how Mary, with her no-nonsense black suit and white blouse, could have gotten to where she is without the instinct to challenge. Not that she was much of a rebel, she emphasizes. Having grown up in a Catholic enclave in Bayonne, New Jersey, she looks back fondly on her childhood. “You had your home family and you had your school family.” And the transition between the two was almost seamless. Her family went to church every Sunday for 9 o’clock Mass. “If you didn’t go to 9 o’clock, you had to have a note for the nun the next day in school.” With regard to discipline, she recalls, the parents and the teachers were always on the same page. “If you did something wrong, you went home and Mom would always say, ‘What did you do wrong?’ It was never ‘What did that nun say to you?’” In one of her classes, there were 52 students and one teacher, and never a significant discipline problem.
Mary went to Saint Peter’s College, then on to New York University for a master’s degree in public policy, but she completed her graduate degree at Fairleigh Dickinson University with a concentration in educational leadership, an experience she found “eye-opening.” She began to realize that there was a big world out there. “I met diversity,” she remembers, laughing a little. “It was very intriguing to meet people of different faiths and cultures. And some people didn’t believe in God. Some people were indifferent to God. Some people didn’t have a God. But they were good people, you know?” She had heated discussions with friends from all backgrounds. Ultimately, all of this arguing and challenging led her to think she was meant to become a lawyer.
She applied to law school but didn’t end up going. Instead, she met her husband. Only a few short years later, her two sons led her back to the world of Catholic education. When her eldest son, John, began kindergarten at a suburban Catholic school, she recalls that “of course, I volunteered for everything. Everything you could do at that school, I did.”
Eventually, Mary took a teaching position at her sons’ elementary school, an institution she came to love even more than the one she had grown up in. “It seemed warmer. It didn’t seem so detached. The Franciscan charisma was so different. They’re very warm, very humble. I was so taken by that. You get enveloped into a faith community.”
Whatever the community gave her, she seemed to want to give back in spades. There were small things at the school, things she hoped would change, and she was getting antsy waiting for it to happen. She remembers her frustration with the “complacency” of some of her colleagues. So she started to make suggestions. The nun who was the principal at the time said to her, “Mary, if you really want to effect change, you should start thinking about a leadership role.”
Being a principal never entered Mary’s mind, she says, until she heard those words: effect change. “I was happy to be doing really well with my ministry and having a fine family.” But then it hit her: “I wanted to effect change.”
There was another reason that Mary said she hadn’t considered a leadership position prior to that moment: “My principals up to that point had all been nuns.” Until then, she had never considered the possibility of a layperson being the spiritual and educational leader of a Catholic school. Now Mary Baier exemplifies how a layperson can successfully “effect change” as the leader of a Catholic school.
She says that she knew she “wanted to be in an environment where I can be the best I can. And that’s in a faith-filled environment.” She participated in a leadership program run by the Archdiocese of Newark. She served 10 years on the school advisory board for the archdiocese as well. Finally, Mary shadowed a principal for six months before taking on a job as principal in a suburban area for five years, then later as a principal in Jersey City.
Her days are long and hectic, and there is always a new challenge. She is in the building long hours, making sure everything is running. She is there to greet the kids. “You’re always visible and accessible to them, and you get to know them. And your faculty too. That’s part of your family.” Then you begin to address the problems that come up—a problem with a student, a problem with maintenance. Is there a parent waiting to see you? Then she makes calls to benefactors and to pastors and to the priests of the local parishes to keep in good contact with the community. After school, she has faculty meetings. And in the evenings, there is always an activity as well. The night before, Mary had a basketball game to attend, and the night before that, she was at the cathedral with her students singing vespers for the religious communities.
She is worried not only about personnel and community matters but also about finances. When faced with a growing budget crunch at her last school, she helped to open up a Montessori early-childhood program. It started with 15 students and had 210 by the time she left. “That program allowed the elementary school to be vibrant because the early-childhood program funded the school.” That, she says, was one of the most rewarding episodes in her career.
Looking back, she realizes this was not a position she would have wanted or been able to fulfill well when she had young children at home. “You have to be careful because it can suck you right in. You could be here day and night even if you have a husband and small children.” Now that her children have grown, though,